Paradise Lost

On a Wednesday night in the summer of 1968, I left my mother’s house in Lubbock, Texas, in the dead of night, knowing I could never go back.

On a Friday morning at a bus stop in the middle-of-nowhere, Arizona, I met the man who would change my life.

I sat on a worn wooden bench, waiting for the number thirteen bus to San Bernardino. Jim Morrison crooned in my headphones as I thumbed through a paperback of Rosemary’s Baby I picked up at a bus station in Santa Fe.

I stared with indifference at the desert, stretched to the horizon. Heat rose from the packed earth, distorting the cars that drove by on the interstate, hazy and impossibly far away. The world was desaturated, painted over with a pale-yellow tint, like the John Wayne movies my father watched while he drank himself to sleep on his rust brown, beer-stained recliner.

A man walked into the bus stop and leaned against a poster on the wall, a ‘modern woman’ free and independent, pushing away a man in a stuffy suit as she took a confident drag of her cigarette. The poster was tarnished and dusty, like the rest of the town. The woman’s face vandalized, devil horns, deep red X’s painted over the eyes.

I felt the man before I saw him. He stood at the far side of the bench, trying to get me to notice him, without making it too obvious he was trying to get me to notice him.

“Headed West?” He asked in a matter-of-fact kind of way, telling me, not asking me.

I kept my eyes on my book. I was used to the unwanted attention of men. A byproduct of growing up in a place where men thought if they wanted something, they should be able to take it- and take it they did. I’ve been under the depraved microscope of men since I got my first bra when I was twelve. Family cookouts where hugs from my uncles lasted a little too long.

The man mumbled under his breath, loud enough so I would hear him, but soft enough that it seemed like he didn’t care if I heard it or not. “Anyone who needs more than one suitcase is a tourist, not a traveler.”

He really seemed to want to impress me. Quoting the book I was reading – a book I wasn’t particularly fond of or attached to- seemed like an odd way to do it, but I figured, what the hell. If he really wanted to talk to me that bad, how much could it hurt?

I relented, shifting my stare from the prose of Ira Levin to the stranger who yearned for attention. He was tall and rugged. Dark stubble covered a strong jawline. He wore his hair long, like the surfers out in California. He dressed in simple clothes: button up flannel, denim jeans, and dirty work boots.

“Where are you headed in your travels?” he asked.

“Don't know. Just somewhere new.”

“You mean somewhere besides West Texas.”

My paranoia kicked in. How could he know that? Did someone send him? Were they looking for me?

He responded as if he read my mind. “Hey, I'm no one to worry about darling. I'm a traveler like yourself, and that accent ain't easy to hide.” He laughed to himself; smug, as if he knew everything about me. There was warmth in the laugh too. Something infectious. I found myself smirking.

 “So, I was right then.”

“Right about what?” I asked.

“Just a feeling I had when I walked up. I've seen a lot of people come and go, and there's a certain look people get when their soul is lost. You got that look, more than anyone I've ever seen.”

“My soul ain’t lost.”

“Well then I give my condolences.”

I wanted him to explain, but I wasn’t going to ask him to. He was smug enough without me giving the satisfaction of my interest. I knew that if I didn’t say anything, he’d explain himself anyway. Men are like that. They need their words to be heard. They need to know they’re smarter and cleverer than you.

“Life's too short to keep yourself shackled in one spot. A content soul is a broken soul. A soul should be free. Let the wind take it where it will. One day the wind will calm and set it down in paradise. That’s how a soul finds it home.”

“I ain’t never goin’ home.” I meant to say it in my head, but in the moment, it just came out; slipped through my teeth and made itself known to the universe.

“A runaway then.” He wasn’t asking, he was stating a fact. He didn’t need to ask me questions, as far as he was concerned, he knew everything about me. So far, he guessed a few things that were true, but he was far from understanding who I was or why I was out here in this barren, godless wasteland. He didn’t know anything about me, but he must have read the concern on my face, sensed that I was running from something that I couldn’t go back to.

“Don't worry darling I'm not the police. If you did run away- and I'm not saying you did- I'm sure you had a reason. As far as I'm concerned, you're free to let your soul guide your path.”

Cars sped by under the blazing sun as I looked out towards the highway. That infinite concrete ribbon that traveled to the furthest, most secluded corners of the country. I wondered where my soul was trying to take me. Was there some paradise waiting for me out there? Somewhere past the dust and nothing.

Would I find myself out west? Away from two in the morning screaming matches and shattering glass? Away from the eerie silence in the quiet of the night, listening for the creak of boards in the hallway outside my bedroom? West, to a future that was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating.

I was headed to California, but was that where my soul wanted to go? Or did I just decide that was the best place to run to? I’d seen it in magazines and TV programs. Golden coasts and deep blue water. Paradise. Or at least the closest thing I could imagine to it. The path back to some semblance of peace.

The man stopped leaning on the poster and stepped towards me. “Well, it was nice to meet you-?” He gave a questioning pause. The pause someone gives when they want to know your name, but don’t want to ask for it.

“My name’s Anna. Anna Grace.”

“Hello, Anna Grace. My name’s Samuel. Samuel Crawford.” He held out his hand, and for some reason, I shook it. “Well, Anna Grace. At the current time, the wind blows my soul west. I wish you luck on your travels.”

He waved to me as he walked away from the bus stop. He walked with confidence, a man who knew exactly where every step was leading him. I watched him strut across the street and get behind the wheel of a light blue pickup truck with California plates. A girl sat in the passenger seat. She looked around my age, maybe a couple years older, dark skin and wild curly hair.

Two men sat in the bed of the truck. They were older, probably in their early to mid-twenties. One was Hispanic, tall and lanky, a skeleton with enough skin and meat to hold itself together. The other was big. Huge and imposing, a tattoo of a chicken on his neck. A mighty oak, stolid against the hot desert wind.

 The engine roared to life. A folksy-acoustic ballad fuzzed through the radio. The truck began to pull away as the bus arrived and blocked my view. The bus doors hissed open on worn-out pistons. A couple of ragged stragglers stepped down onto the sidewalk, headed home or looking for somewhere new to find some ever-shifting purpose.

The bus driver looked down at me through the open door. “Thirteen to San Bernadino?”

The bus doors hissed closed. I sat on the bench and watched as it headed west in a cloud of beige. I stood and walked to the curb. I looked left, then right. The wind blew over me, through my hair and between my fingers. Which way was it trying to take me?

I walked down the sidewalk, carefully measuring each step to avoid the cracks in the concrete. I used to play the same game with the kids in my neighborhood. We’d skip down the street chanting, ‘Step on a crack and you break your momma’s back.’

I was five the first time I played the game. I stepped on one of the cracks by mistake. I ran home crying because I thought I’d hurt my momma. She was in the kitchen, cooking dinner with a smile on her face.

That was before he found us again. A short valley of peace, somewhere in the middle of a duplicitous serrated landscape. Paradise- there for the briefest of moments- then gone again.

Maybe my paradise was already lost. A happy childhood. Sun drenched skin. Dancing in the grass while my mother sipped white wine on the porch. The music of birds and insects chirping in the summer heat. Maybe that’s all paradise was, fond memories of contentedness. Vague images in your mind of smiles and laughter. Maybe once we lost that, we’d never get it back.

The day was hot, ninety-seven degrees in early June. I crossed the street to a threadbare gas station to get a cold drink. A bell over the door gave a gentle ring as I walked inside. I took a Coke from the cooler, went to the register. No one was behind the counter. I dug through the crumbled bills in my pocket to find some change, placed a quarter on the counter, grabbed a candy bar and went back out into the heat.

A few blocks down the road I caught up to the truck, parked in a self-serve car wash. The guy with the chicken on his neck sprayed out the bed while the skeleton one wiped down the windows. The girl hung out the passenger window, curls bouncing as she laughed at something Samuel must have said to her.

I sat on a bench and watched them for a while, eating my candy bar. The make-shift family, living free.

The sun began to set on the small desert town. I didn’t remember its name. I doubt the people who lived there even remembered. That’s the kind of town it was, insignificant, a stop on the way from nothing to nowhere.

My stomach lurched. I balled up my candy wrapper and threw it in the garbage. Something pulled at me, a feeling deep inside that forced me to my feet and across the road.

Samuel noticed my approach. He looked into my eyes and smiled, a warm gentle smile that took away the ache in my gut.